Information, Popular
Constraint, and the Democratic
Peace

Philip B. K. Potter, and Matthew A. Baum. "Information, Popular Constraint, and the Democratic Peace." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP14-015, March 2014.

Abstract

Politicians and scholars have long argued that democracies are less prone to international
conflict, at least with other democracies. However, while there is widespread acceptance of this
“law” in international affairs, the theoretical mechanism that drives it remains opaque. We argue
that the distinctive behavior of democracies arises from very specific features of their political
institutions that can facilitate (or hinder) the transmission of information between leaders and the
public. Specifically, popular constraint on executive action relies on robust partisan opposition
that can blow the whistle on foreign policy failures, and media institutions that can effectively
relay this information to the voting public. Crucially, not all democracies are alike when it comes
to these institutions, meaning that the “democratic peace” may not actually apply equally to all.
We find support for these propositions in time series, cross-sectional analyses of conflict
initiation from 1965 to 2006.